


home has a heartbeat

by swainlake



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Regency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21882259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swainlake/pseuds/swainlake
Summary: When his brother and sister-in-law die in a carriage accident on the way to Sanditon, it's left to Sidney Parker to become the guardian of their three orphaned children. Desperate and out of his depth, he hires Charlotte Heywood as a companion for them until a proper governess can be acquired.What follows is a summer of tears, tantrums, and terrible ex-fiancées, but somewhere between all of that, something else begins to grow between Sidney and Charlotte.
Relationships: Charlotte Heywood/Sidney Parker
Comments: 20
Kudos: 120





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> hello everybody! i've been thinking about this au for a while now and finally decided to write it down and share it with you all. as of yet, i don't know exactly how many chapters it'll have but i'm going to do my best to update regularly and give you all a decent story to immerse yourself in!
> 
> title is from _home_ by beau taplin.

_Dear Mr. Parker,_

_I write with the most sincere of regrets to inform you of the unfortunate passing of your brother Mr. Parker and his wife, Mrs. Parker. By all reports they were travelling via coach to the town of Sanditon and took to a dangerous road too quickly. Their coachman fortunately survived._

_Please rest assured that we will keep their bodies and personal effects safe until such a time as you can retrieve them._

_Yours faithfully,_

_C. Heywood_

___________________________

It was a horrendously perfect day when the very distinguished-looking Mr. Sidney Parker first stepped foot on the Heywood property. Contrary to his own dark and turbulent mood, the sun was stubbornly shining down upon him and there was nary a cloud in the sky.

Truly, this must be a mistake. Even the sky agreed. Everybody knew tragedy demanded to be accompanied by bad weather.

His brother — and _Mary! Begad!_ — couldn’t be dead. It simply wasn’t feasible. 

Not Tom. 

Not Tom and Mary. 

He’d been planning on meeting the two of them in Sanditon at the week’s end and it was only by chance that he hadn’t missed the arrival of the Heywood’s terrible letter.

Now here he was stood, gazing up at the comfortably-sized farmhouse where the bodies of his brother and his sister-in-law were waiting for him.

Before he could take another step, the door to the farmhouse opened and a small child no older than nine or ten began to exit before she spotted him standing there beside his coach. Her eyes widened comically before she moved back inside and closed the door behind her with a _snap_.

“ _Papa_!” Sidney heard her shout from behind the door. “ _There’s a strange man here_!”

Too tired, too _empty_ , to be affronted at the insult, Sidney made his way towards the Heywood home and rapped sharply on the door. A small gasp echoed from behind the wood, and then a pause before a small, muffled voice called out to him.

“ _Who is it_?”

Pushing down his irritation he replies, “My name is Sidney Parker. I have come—”

“ _Parker?_!”

Footsteps, and then another voice sounded from behind the door; “ _Becca? Did you say somebody was at the door?_ ”

A giggle was the reply and then the sound of footsteps running away. Sidney scowled, waiting a beat before lifting his hand to rap on the door once more. Before he could however, the door opened once more and Sidney came face-to-face with a young woman of around twenty-odd years.

Large brown eyes gazed up at him in surprise before crinkling slightly at the corners, “Hello! Oh, I do apologise for Becca’s rudeness. I promise to speak with her about it but, well. She is only nine and we cannot expect miracles.” She smiles sweetly up at him, almost inviting him to share in the joke. 

Sidney cannot help but think to himself that if circumstances were different, if he was not here for the reason he was here, he might’ve even smiled back. 

Perhaps.

“How may I help you, Mr. . .” Her voice trailed off uncertainly although the smile didn’t leave her face.

“Parker. Sidney Parker. I am here about—”

“Oh!” Instantly her face sobered and one of her hands fluttered upwards to press against her breast. “Mr. Parker! Please, do come in at once! We’ve been expecting you.”

The girl stepped back, opening the door wider to allow him entry. “Thank you, Miss Heywood.”

She smiled again in response, though this time it contained none of the good cheer it previously did. “Of course. My father is upstairs, I’ll go fetch him immediately—”

“Miss Heywood?” He interrupts. “May I. . .”

He couldn’t say it. 

She seems to glean his meaning though for she stills and turns to face him with a look of compassion on her face. “Of course. They’re right this way.”

She holds a hand out towards the back of the house and he follows her directive. They neither of them speak a word as she guides him towards what he gathers is the parlour and then suddenly he sees them.

_ Good Lord. _

This is real.

His legs threaten to collapse under him as he gazes upon the bodies laid out on a table. They’re each covered in large white cloths. For proprieties sake? Or perhaps so this family didn't have to gaze upon the decaying faces of his own? “For the children.” She tells him, as though she can read his mind. “In case they sneak in here.” 

“Why are they _here_ in the first place?”

She pauses, “Willingden is a small town, Mr. Parker. I’m afraid there was nowhere else for them to stay for this long.” She hesitates before reaching over to give his arm a single comforting squeeze. “I’ll leave you alone with them while I fetch my father. Please, take all the time you need.”

With that, she leaves him in peace, closing the parlour door behind her softly.

It's only then that he allows himself to finally weep.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for your patience, comments, and kudos! i appreciate it all!
> 
> here's the next chapter that i hope you'll be as excited for as you all seemed about the previous one! it's slightly longer than the last chap as well :)

The same young woman finds him later, bent over at the waist as he loses what little breakfast he’d managed to force himself to eat that morning.

He had wept silently for a long while in the Heywood parlour, staring dolefully at the two cloth-covered bodies laid out on the table in front of him. They had both been so _young_ still, for all they were parents to three darling and yet inarguably rambunctious children. 

So very young, and with so much left to live for. 

Just last month he had spent some time with Tom’s family in London, and they had made arrangements to visit Sanditon together. Tom had been all smiles as he had invited Sidney (“And your friends must come too, of course!”) to join him in his latest endeavour. 

What had been their childhood home was now turned Tom’s pet project, although, he supposed, the responsibility now fell upon him. 

Just like Tom’s family.

It had been that thought that brought him rushing outside to empty his accounts behind the Heywood barn. 

Meanwhile the Heywood girl had kept her word and made sure he had his privacy as he had wept over the bodies of his brother and Mary, and now here she was again with a small mug of water in her hands that she gripped tightly as he spat the taste of bile into the hay.

When he straightened from his position she silently held the mug out and his mouth quirked up in a facsimile of a smile. “Thank you, Miss Heywood.” 

He had called her that honorific earlier but it hits him then that she hadn’t actually been given a chance to properly introduce herself. Perhaps she was not even a Heywood after all. “That was your name, was it not? I apologise for—well. I apologise.” He stares down at the mug in his hands, tightening his grip on it as he tries not to acknowledge how bloody _helpless_ he feels.

“It’s quite alright, Mr. Parker.” She replies with a soft smile. “You were correct. I am Miss Charlotte Heywood, at your service.” 

Next to them, a horse nickers at her and she shushes it.

“Charlotte.” He shakes his head sharply, correcting himself. “Miss Heywood. Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Mr. Parker.”

They’re both silent for a long while then; she absentmindedly begins petting the horse intent on interrupting their peace while he takes slow sips of water from the mug in his hands.

Eventually, he knows he must make a move. The problem was he wasn’t entirely sure which move to make.

The last time he had felt this lost, he’d had Tom there to hold him up.

From the corner of his eye he sees her bite her lip and peek up at him through the strands of her hair but still, she allows him his silence. It’s not until the horse she’s petting starts mouthing at her neck, nuzzling behind her hair as though he’s searching for hidden treats, that she breaks the silence with a giggle.

Without his consent, he can feel his lips twitch up at the corners.

“It seems you have an admirer, Miss Heywood.”

She turns to him, eyes sparkling as she tries fruitlessly to nudge the horse away. “In truth, Mr. Parker, old Leonidas admires anybody who he thinks could potentially be hiding apples from him.” The horse huffs out a breath as though taking offence and she turns back to it with a teasing grin, “Oh, shush. You know I’m right.”

Sidney looks at her in bemusement, “Do you often converse with horses?”

“Only sometimes.” She replies without a hint of shame, smiling at the horse as though they’re sharing a joke. “They’re much less likely to give me attitude when it’s time for lessons.”

“Lessons?”

“With my younger siblings,” 

“You teach them?”

“Informally.” She shrugs.

He pauses at that, the idea truthfully never having occurred to him that some families may not educate their children in proper schoolhouses or with tutors as his own had done. “Is that common?” He asks delicately.

She shrugs lightly, although there’s now a tight smile on her face. “Very. At least, in Willingden it is. We don’t have a schoolhouse and with fourteen children to support it just doesn’t seem practical to pay for a tutor when I’m here.”

“Fourteen?!”

He must sound as horrified as he feels for she bursts into laughter at that, finally turning fully away from the horse to face him. She leans lightly against the barn door and smiles again, more genuinely this time. “Yes, fourteen. Most of us still live at home as well, aside from my brother.”

He looks over his shoulder back at the house and frowns lightly. It’s decently sized, a perfectly respectable Gentleman’s home, but fourteen children? Where did they sleep? How had they not all killed one another?

Much as he loves them, Sidney has spent many a night at the pub bemoaning his three siblings and the antics they each get up to. He couldn’t imagine having an extra _ten_ to contest with.

Seeing his frown, she blushes. “It’s not so bad, truly. At least I’ve never had to be worried about being lonely!”

His eyes roam across her face, “It must be difficult, though. Being responsible for others, and so many.” He thinks of Georgiana then, and the struggles he’s had with his own newfound responsibility over her.

A brief image of a dozen Georgiana’s enters his mind and he almost flinches at the thought. 

God forbid.

“Oh no!” She rushes to assure him and he quickly shakes away the worrying image of multiple versions of his capricious ward. “I’ve gotten quite good at it. In fact, I’ve been thinking perhaps one day I may look into becoming a professional educator.”

“A teacher?

“More likely a governess,” She muses, “Or perhaps even a proper tutor if I can find a family willing to hire a woman.”

It’s not likely, and it seems she’s as aware of it as he.

He won’t be the one to say it though. Not when her eyes still sparkle with humour and _possibility_.

It hits him then that he’s never felt quite this old before.

As jaded.

His world has ended, his future all but gone, while she still clearly looks toward her own with hope and bright eyes.

Perhaps a year or so ago he might have cruelly dashed that hope if only to try and bring her down to his level of suffering but now—

“I’m sure you’d make a wonderful educator.” He tells her softly, and finds that it’s true. He’d seen her with the young girl who’d closed the door on him — her little sister — and knows now that she’d managed to somehow skilfully keep over a dozen other children of indiscriminate age occupied while he mourned his dead family.

From experience, he knows that being able to wrangle children is half the job of an educator. Perhaps even more than half.

His heart stutters at the way she ducks her head to try and hide her answering grin, “Why thank you, Mr. Parker. That’s very kind of you to say.”

Suddenly an idea occurs to him. It’s. .. well it’s quite absurd. But the more he thinks on it the more he finds he quite likes the idea, regardless of its absurdity.

Besides, absurdity is frankly the least of his worries at this point in time.

“I am not usually considered to be a kind man,” He tells her consideringly. His eyes rove over her, taking her in from head to toe. “May I be frank with you, Miss Heywood?”

“Of course.”

He swallows, “I find myself in need of an educator, and without the ability or enthusiasm to try and find one on such short notice.”

She looks confused, “Alright. . .?”

“Therefore,” He continues before he can think better of it. “I would like to offer you a job.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up that it may be a while until the next chapter. i've just started working on another wip for a different fandom and i'm afraid it's got my attention right now. still, i'll do my best to not leave you all hanging!

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos are absolutely appreciated, and don't hesitate to tell me if there's something you'd like to see in this story! i'll do my best to incorporate it x 
> 
> — come visit me on [tumblr](http://swainlake.tumblr.com/)


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